Deep Led Black Matrix

 

I recently finished listening to Whoosh!, the latest album by Deep Purple, which finishes up my listening quest of a particular sort.   About a year ago I compiled a table of all the studio releases by Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin, and Black Sabbath, in order of release.  It’s interesting the way they dovetail with each other.

Deep Purple (Mark I) was the first, with Shades of Deep Purple in 1968.  Ironically, they’re also the most recent, with the aforementioned Whoosh!, although Rod Evans and Nick Simper are long gone; the current lineup has Steve Morse on guitar, Don Airey on keyboards, Roger Glover on bass, Ian Gillan on vocals, and the other Ian (Paice) on drums, now the only member to have been with the band from start to finish.  Led Zeppelin, formed by Jimmy Page from the ashes of the Yardbirds, were next, releasing the self-titled Led Zeppelin album in 1969.  Finally Black Sabbath brought us their first album on Friday, February 13, 1970 (though the US release was in June of that year).  Of the three, Purple’s self-titled album was their third, not their debut.  And the fourth LZ album, although not having a real title, per se, is commonly referred to as LZ IV, as they already had a self-titled album.   

Here are some nuggets, not exactly secrets.   Unlike the other two, Led Zeppelin had only one lineup – when John Bonham died in September 1980, it was game over for the band.  I’ve included the two Page-Plant albums and Celebration Day, but not Outrider, the Plant solo albums, or Them Crooked Vultures (John Paul Jones’ supergroup collaboration with Josh Homme of Queens of the Stone Age and Dave Grohl of Nirvana & Foo Fighters).  I’ve also omitted Rainbow (Blackmore and some DP alumni), Whitesnake (Coverdale and some DP alumni), Gillan/Ian Gillan Band, as well as compilation albums.  However, both Born Again and Seventh Star (with Gillan and Hughes) make the cut.  Also, Heaven & Hell is essentially Black Sabbath with Dio (The Mob Rules & Dehumanizer lineups), and The Dio Years includes three new tracks.  For live albums, I put them in sequence according to when they were recorded, not when they were released (e.g. The Song Remains The Same).  Bootlegs are too numerous to count…

So here it is, year by year.  Just to be cute and lazy, I’ll omit the band names, see if you can recognize who made which albums – it shouldn’t be hard for the veterans amongst us:

1968     Shades of Deep Purple, Book of Taliesyn (Mark I).

1969     Led Zeppelin (S/T = self-titled), Deep Purple (S/T, third of three Mark I albums), Concerto for Group and Orchestra, Led Zeppelin II

1970     Black Sabbath (S/T), In Rock, Paranoid, LZ III

1971     Fireball, Master of Reality, LZ IV

1972     Machine Head, Vol 4, Made in Japan (Live)

1973     Who Do We Think We Are, Houses of the Holy, The Song Remains the Same (Live), Sabbath, Bloody Sabbath

1974     Burn, Stormbringer

1975     Physical Graffiti, Sabotage, Come Taste The Band

1976.    Presence, Technical Ecstasy

1978     Never Say Die

1979     In Through The Out Door

1980     Heaven And Hell

1981     The Mob Rules

1982     CODA, Live Evil

1983     Born Again

1984     Perfect Strangers

1986     Seventh Star

1987     House of Blue Light, Eternal Idol

1988     Nobody’s Perfect (Live)

1989     Headless Cross

1990     TYR, Slaves and Masters

1992     Dehumanizer

1993     The Battle Rages On

1994     No Quarter (Live)

1995     Forbidden

1996     Purpendicular

1997     Reunion (Live)

1998     Walking Into Clarksdale, Abandon

2003     Bananas

2005     Rapture of the Deep

2007     Live from Radio City Music Hall (Live); Black Sabbath: The Dio Years; Celebration Day (Live)

2009     The Devil You Know

2013     Now What ?!, Thirteen

2017     The End: Live in Birmingham (Live), Infinite

2020     Whoosh!